“Madrigal, turn us about,” continued Hartwell. “Set a course for Pirate Cove.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” grinned Madrigal as he hauled the wheel and moved them away from the pirate vessel. The old galleon rolled from left to right as it ploughed the sea, though since Mechatronic’s upgrades, the rolling gait was much smoother as some form of dampening field helped to protect the ship against the movement of the ocean, making Madrigal’s control of the vessel almost absolute. Everyone was therefore astonished when the galleon lurched madly, making them fear that they were sinking.

Hartwell looked out and saw the ocean was rising and falling in a highly localised area, moving from left to right across his vision, as though something huge was moving at high speed under the surface. The crew turned their attention to the pirate vessel, which seemed to be directly in the path of whatever was disturbing the sea.

They watched in astonishment as a whirlpool formed around the pirate vessel, causing it to spin around, unable to counter whatever was creating the furious currents. Then, with a gigantic roar, something broke the surface of the water, something huge, something that shrieked and bellowed in anger, something that had never been seen or heard before.

Gigantic tentacles reached up and grabbed the pirate vessel, wrapping around the ship, crushing and splintering the hull. The central body of the thing rising from the ocean was a colossal stalk of green, scaly skin, topped with a bulbous head containing a repellent slit for a mouth and a single eye, larger than a sailing ship, which blinked in the sudden daylight as it broke the surface of the water.

“By all the Gods, it’s the kraken!” gasped Fitch, looking in astonishment at the creature. All sailors knew of the legends of the kraken, but none had ever seen it before.

“Look!” shouted Susanna, her hand pointing to something that twinkled in the bright Caribbean sun. “Look at the body! It has metallic tentacles!”

The crew squinted at the creature, unable to make out the details under the blazing sun and the tons of water cascading down from the creature as it crushed the pirate vessel.

“Are you sure?” shouted Bardon, one hand raised to shade his eyes from the glare. “It could just be ze sun reflecting off ze scales of zat beast!”

“Susanna is correct,” said Mechatronic, her superior eyes adapting to the glare. “That creature has biomechanical implants.”

“Are you absolutely certain?” asked Hartwell, who could see very little as the creature thrashed in the water and the sun continued to dazzle his vision.

The monster turned its baleful eye down to the doomed pirate ship held firmly in its tentacles and a red glow illuminated the immense black pupil. A laser beam erupted from the eye and smashed into the vessel, so hot it melted flesh, so powerful it smashed through the hull as though it were thin ice. With a final roar, the leviathan sunk back down into the sea, dragging the burning, disintegrating vessel with it.

“Fairly certain, yes,” said Mechatronic in the silence that followed.

Power up the laser cannons! Get Mister Darwin on deck! Follow that mechanical kraken!

Being a reluctant pirate captain used to be easy for James Hartwell. He just had to deal with the pursuing English navy, a corrupt English admiral, marauding pirates, his own crew of technologically mutating buccaneers, and his private feelings toward a mysterious and attractive cyborg fallen from the stars.

Now, he has to do all this while chasing a mechanically enhanced kraken across the world’s oceans. What’s worse, they seem to have picked up Charles Darwin on the way, and Lady Mechatronic seems quite smitten with the young naturalist.

Can Hartwell negotiate the seven seas, his own emotions and a giant cyber squid with a laser eye that can burn through a ship in seconds? Or should he just stay in his cabin with his absinthe?